try, which I don't want, but never so much as a
single leaf of the history. Don't grin! You aggravate me. I believe
you've taken it away to tease me. Have you? Confess now! It's in your
pocket all the time?"

Irene looked eagerly at the bulging outline of her brother's coat, but
her newly formed hopes were doomed to disappointment.

"Never seen it! What should _I_ want with your old history book? I've
finished for good with such vanities, thank the Fates!"

"Don't rub it in. It's a beastly shame _you_ should be allowed to leave
school while _I_ must go slaving on at Miss Gordon's. Ugh! How I hate
the place! The idea of going back there to-morrow! It's simply
appalling. A whole term of dreary grind, and only a fortnight's holiday
at the end of it. Miss Gordon gives the _stingiest_ holidays. If my
fairy godmother could appear and grant me a wish I should choose never,
never, _never_ to see St. Osmund's College in all my life again. I'd ask
her to wave her magic wand and transport me over the sea."

Irene spoke hotly, flinging books about with scant regard for their
covers. Her slim hands were dusty, and her short, yellow hair as ruffled
as her temper. There was even a suspicion of moisture about the corners
of her gray eyes. She rubbed them surreptitiously with a ball of a
handkerchief when her head happened to be inside the cupboard. She did
not wish Vincent to witness this phase of her emotions.

"Every girl ought to be provided with a decent fairy godmother," she
gulped. "If mine did her duty she'd come to rescue me now. Yes, she
would, and be quick about it too!"

How very seldom in the course of an ordinary life such wishes are
granted! Not once surely in a million times! Yet at that identical
moment, almost as if in direct answer to her daughter's vigorous tirade,
Mrs. Beverley entered the room. There was a sparkle of excitement in her
eyes, and her whole atmosphere seemed to radiate news. She ran in as
joyously as a girl, clapping her hands and evidently brimming over with
something she was about to communicate.

"Why, Mums! Mums--darling! What's the matter?" asked Irene. "You look as
if you'd had a fortune left you. Tell us at once."

"Not quite a fortune, but next best to it," said Mrs. Beverley, sitting
down on the end of the sofa. "Daddy says I may tell you now, bairns. It
has all happened so suddenly, and has been arranged in a rush. You
remember Dad mentioning a few weeks ago that Mr. Southern, the fi